Poverty: Balance on Resurrection City

Churning through the trash-strewn gumbo that had once been a manicured meadow, a federal bulldozer last week interred the last traces of Resurrection City. Its few remaining inhabitants scattered or imprisoned, the shantytown capital and symbol of the Poor People's Campaign had long since become an ugly, anarchic embarrassment to their cause.

The encampment's six-week tenure afforded ample time to pressure a patently willing Administration to do what it could to help the poor. The Department of Agriculture reacted by beefing up its food-stamp program by $20 million and pressuring 256 counties to distribute more surplus food to the poor. The...